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Saturday, July 05, 2014

The 12 Mathematicians Who Set The Stage For The Modern World

Mathematics is an increasingly central part of our world and an immensely fascinating realm of thought.

But long before the development of the math that gave us computers, quantum mechanics, and GPS satellites, generations of brilliant minds — spanning from the ancient Greeks through the eighteenth century — built up the basic mathematical ideas and tools that sit at the foundation of our understanding of math and its relationship to the world.

Here are 12 of the most brilliant of those minds and some of their contributions to the great chain of mathematics.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The irony of this list is that the most recent great mathmetician lived in the 1700's.

Anonymous said...

There have been great mathematicians in the last 300 years. This article purports to suggest which mathematicians from the past set the stage for our modern day advances. I'm sure much of what is being learned today will set the stage for advances 300 years from now.

Thanks, Joe, for posting such an engaging article. You probably won't get many comments on it though...unless, of course, somebody wants to relate it to the Common Core!

Anonymous said...

Great mathematicians also possessed great vision.They knew hundreds of years ago the advances that would be the result of their work.We can look back in hindsight at what they accomplished.Anyone can do that.If this author could produce a hypothetical future result of modern math with some degree of accuracy he indeed could include many mathematicians who are alive today in the greatness category.